7 ms·

As a Russian, I'd like to say I'm deeply sorry for the losses of passengers' families. Whoever did this is a complete monster. Many russians do not support any

by snitko 12y ago

As a Russian, I'd like to say I'm deeply sorry for the losses of passengers' families. Whoever did this is a complete monster. Many russians do not support any war or aggression against Ukraine and many are convinced, that Russian government is in some way responsible for this tragedy. I personally believe we, as people, will never know the truth as to who did it - was it Ukrainians or the rebels or the Russians. However, this is the direct result of the existence of states and governments. We are taxed to build weapons and go to war for some private and corporate interests we have nothing in common with. Those weapons were built for our money. If each and every person was asked separately "would you like to give us 10% of your income to build these deadly weapons and support the rebels in Ukraine or would you like to keep this money for your family" nobody would give it away voluntarily. Taxation and states are at the root of this evil and it is at moments like these that I can see it as clear as ever.

Svip 12y ago
I agree. The point of a state should only be about who has responsibility for building the roads and such in that area. Why anyone would kill people to have more roads to pave alludes me (actually, I do know why, but their reasons are not resonating with me).
- snitko 12y ago
  I wasn't gonna go into a discussion here, but I'm tempted to say that not everyone believes states should have any responsibilities, including building roads. The problem is, you cannot have one without the other. If you have states and taxation, they're gonna trick you into paying for things you don't want or need or even object.
  - foldr 12y ago
    I know that hacker news has more-or-less descended into self parody already, but do we have to have yet another subthread on how gub'mints are the root of all evil? It's especially ironic given that this has happened partly as a result of a lack of stable government in the region.
ufmace 12y ago
I'm going to take issue with that taxation and states being the root of evil. They are an inevitable result of the way that we humans are. If anything is evil, it's human nature itself. There are always going to be people who want to form organizations, leadership cabals, and have control over things. Even areas already under the control of a strong Government still have corporations, criminal gangs, and various types of civil organizations, all vying for a little bit of that control pie. Essentially, there will always be some sort of government. It can be a single one that's powerful enough to be unquestionably dominant over anything it chooses to touch, or it can be dozens of little ones, all vying for control over various things in various places. That essentially looks like Somalia or Syria or Libya - total chaos, with constant risk of offending one warlord or another or some gang of bandits, and none of them will make the slightest pretense of listening to you. Avoiding that requires having one government with enough power to squash anybody like that. The best we can get is to have one dominant government, set up in such a way that it has some degree of obligation to listen to the population.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > The best we can get is to have one dominant government You think that would resolve everything hey ? Don't you think one dominant government would actually have no incentive to listen to the population and could impose its right by might alone ?
  - jahewson 12y ago
    Not really. Look at China, they have a hugely powerful government, yet even they find it easier to engage in popularism than domination. It's much easier to govern a country which supports you: logically any sustainable government should be interested in maintaining enough popularity that their position will not be undermined: but no more than that. European history is an excellent case study in the fall of dominant rulers who failed to satisfy their subjects.
    - zenocon 12y ago
      Wow, if you're looking at the Chinese government as a model for governance... Uniting all world governments into a single state scares the hell out of me, and I think it could very well be the worst idea, but suggesting China as a pattern is the icing on the cake, quite frankly.
jackweirdy 12y ago
> I personally believe we, as people, will never know the truth as to who did it - was it Ukrainians or the rebels or the Russians. I disagree. There's a very promising international investigation being planned, and they have an excellent track record of success.
- vecinu 12y ago
  I am going to have to disagree with you and point you to certain facts that are coming out of the crash site. People are looting personal items and 'evidence' [1] The rebels are blocking access to the investigation [2] The rebel commander has fired warning shots at investigators [2] Now I ask you again, do you really think they will be successful this time? [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heartless-looters-raid-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-crash-site-article-1.1872047 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heartless-looters-raid... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-crash-pro-russia-rebels-block-access-ukraine http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-crash-pro-...
  - nokiaman 12y ago
    I agree and disagree. Tabloids are having a field day with claims of looting and corpses left to rot as a "final insult to the dead". Yet there has been no video of looters stuffing Euros into their pockets, despite the presence of 24/7 camera crews. Meanwhile others reporters are confirming that bodies are being recovered and sent to the morgue. So who is right? Another contradiction are claims that "We have compelling evidence that THEY did it" yet at the same time there are headlines saying "THEY'RE destroying the evidence". So which is it? You either have the evidence or you don't, right? What is reported as "fact" is so often just conjecture, opinion or simply made up, either to support a political narrative or boost ratings. Media reporting should have no bearing on an official investigation, but of course, they will have a huge influence in the court of public opinion. The media are so desperate to get their ratings up, they'll literally let anybody have their say. Look how MSNBC got punked on the day of the crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDH2Z2_6Zw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDH2Z2_6Zw
  - jackweirdy 12y ago
andrewljohnson 12y ago
I doubt you'd be here using the internet at all if humans didn't cooperate and form governments together. For all the atrocities caused by nations, saying we should all live as anarcho-savages isn't a solution.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  The advantage of states is they abstract anarchy. Without states, it is man on man. With states, it is state on state. It's at least slightly better.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
>I personally believe we, as people, will never know the truth as to who did it - was it Ukrainians or the rebels or the Russians. Is this really disputed? There are people with agendas trying to spin it one way or the other, but given that the rebels initially claimed responsibility for it, and the fact the Russians probably wouldn't make this mistake (it's easy to check if something is a commercial aircraft), it looks almost certain it was the rebels mistaking the airliner for a military plane.
- nokiaman 12y ago
  People thought TWA 800 was hit by a missile but after months of investigative work it was determined not to be the case. So let's keep an open mind. The Ukrainians are not infallible. >After 9 Days, Ukraine Says Its Missile Hit A Russian Jet Earlier today, Ukraine's military had taken responsibility after nine days of increasingly vaporous denials. Seventy-eight people, most of them Russian émigrés to Israel, died when the Siberian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk exploded and plunged 35,000 feet into the sea off the Russian coast. Four minutes earlier, a Ukrainian air defense exercise fired two long-range antiaircraft missiles at a drone off the Black Sea's Crimean coast. Russian investigators concluded on Friday that one of the missiles, an S-300, struck the drone, but that the second, an S-200, flew 150 more miles and unleashed a warhead of shrapnel balls at the airliner. / http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/world/after-9-days-ukraine-says-its-missile-hit-a-russian-jet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/world/after-9-days-ukraine...
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    My mind isn't closed on this one, but the case appears pretty clear-cut to me. While it could have exploded mid air, I seriously doubt it crashing in the war zone was a coincidence.
    - myth_drannon 12y ago
      Surface-to-air missile encountering a large body moving at 900km/h which is fully loaded with fuel will cause the body to completely disintegrate mid air at 10000ft. In this case a ball of fire was clearly seen at the time of the impact and bodies were lying intact on the ground. I'm more and more convinced that it'ss an air-to-air missile, exactly like that Spanish air traffic controller in Kiev was telling that 2 Ukrainian military war planes were tailing that Boeing
eevilspock 12y ago
[damn, i up voted before I got to the end. I'll never do that again.] Taxation also does a lot of positive things. Your logic is filled with false conclusions. What do you propose instead of taxation and states?
- snitko 12y ago
  There is no my or someone else's logic. There's logic. If you say it's ok that taxation not only sponsored the development of weapons that killed all those people, but they also provided some good things, then it's exactly equal to saying "my husband beats me sometimes, but he's also a provider for my family, so it's okay and we're working on the beating thing". No. Just no. The alternative is free market and free enterprise, of course. I don't propose it though. I know people are very stubborn with the old ways. My only hope is that we are going to see no-state and free market in some places on earth and when people are going to see it's good, they're gonna copy that.

by snitko 12y ago

Svip 12y ago

I agree. The point of a state should only be about who has responsibility for building the roads and such in that area. Why anyone would kill people to have more roads to pave alludes me (actually, I do know why, but their reasons are not resonating with me).

snitko 12y ago
I wasn't gonna go into a discussion here, but I'm tempted to say that not everyone believes states should have any responsibilities, including building roads. The problem is, you cannot have one without the other. If you have states and taxation, they're gonna trick you into paying for things you don't want or need or even object.
- foldr 12y ago
  I know that hacker news has more-or-less descended into self parody already, but do we have to have yet another subthread on how gub'mints are the root of all evil? It's especially ironic given that this has happened partly as a result of a lack of stable government in the region.

ufmace 12y ago

I'm going to take issue with that taxation and states being the root of evil. They are an inevitable result of the way that we humans are. If anything is evil, it's human nature itself. There are always going to be people who want to form organizations, leadership cabals, and have control over things. Even areas already under the control of a strong Government still have corporations, criminal gangs, and various types of civil organizations, all vying for a little bit of that control pie. Essentially, there will always be some sort of government. It can be a single one that's powerful enough to be unquestionably dominant over anything it chooses to touch, or it can be dozens of little ones, all vying for control over various things in various places. That essentially looks like Somalia or Syria or Libya - total chaos, with constant risk of offending one warlord or another or some gang of bandits, and none of them will make the slightest pretense of listening to you. Avoiding that requires having one government with enough power to squash anybody like that. The best we can get is to have one dominant government, set up in such a way that it has some degree of obligation to listen to the population.

ekianjo 12y ago
> The best we can get is to have one dominant government You think that would resolve everything hey ? Don't you think one dominant government would actually have no incentive to listen to the population and could impose its right by might alone ?
- jahewson 12y ago
  Not really. Look at China, they have a hugely powerful government, yet even they find it easier to engage in popularism than domination. It's much easier to govern a country which supports you: logically any sustainable government should be interested in maintaining enough popularity that their position will not be undermined: but no more than that. European history is an excellent case study in the fall of dominant rulers who failed to satisfy their subjects.
  - zenocon 12y ago
    Wow, if you're looking at the Chinese government as a model for governance... Uniting all world governments into a single state scares the hell out of me, and I think it could very well be the worst idea, but suggesting China as a pattern is the icing on the cake, quite frankly.

jackweirdy 12y ago

> I personally believe we, as people, will never know the truth as to who did it - was it Ukrainians or the rebels or the Russians. I disagree. There's a very promising international investigation being planned, and they have an excellent track record of success.

vecinu 12y ago
I am going to have to disagree with you and point you to certain facts that are coming out of the crash site. People are looting personal items and 'evidence' [1] The rebels are blocking access to the investigation [2] The rebel commander has fired warning shots at investigators [2] Now I ask you again, do you really think they will be successful this time? [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heartless-looters-raid-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-crash-site-article-1.1872047 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heartless-looters-raid... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-crash-pro-russia-rebels-block-access-ukraine http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-crash-pro-...
- nokiaman 12y ago
  I agree and disagree. Tabloids are having a field day with claims of looting and corpses left to rot as a "final insult to the dead". Yet there has been no video of looters stuffing Euros into their pockets, despite the presence of 24/7 camera crews. Meanwhile others reporters are confirming that bodies are being recovered and sent to the morgue. So who is right? Another contradiction are claims that "We have compelling evidence that THEY did it" yet at the same time there are headlines saying "THEY'RE destroying the evidence". So which is it? You either have the evidence or you don't, right? What is reported as "fact" is so often just conjecture, opinion or simply made up, either to support a political narrative or boost ratings. Media reporting should have no bearing on an official investigation, but of course, they will have a huge influence in the court of public opinion. The media are so desperate to get their ratings up, they'll literally let anybody have their say. Look how MSNBC got punked on the day of the crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDH2Z2_6Zw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDH2Z2_6Zw
- jackweirdy 12y ago

andrewljohnson 12y ago

I doubt you'd be here using the internet at all if humans didn't cooperate and form governments together. For all the atrocities caused by nations, saying we should all live as anarcho-savages isn't a solution.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
The advantage of states is they abstract anarchy. Without states, it is man on man. With states, it is state on state. It's at least slightly better.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

>I personally believe we, as people, will never know the truth as to who did it - was it Ukrainians or the rebels or the Russians. Is this really disputed? There are people with agendas trying to spin it one way or the other, but given that the rebels initially claimed responsibility for it, and the fact the Russians probably wouldn't make this mistake (it's easy to check if something is a commercial aircraft), it looks almost certain it was the rebels mistaking the airliner for a military plane.

nokiaman 12y ago
People thought TWA 800 was hit by a missile but after months of investigative work it was determined not to be the case. So let's keep an open mind. The Ukrainians are not infallible. >After 9 Days, Ukraine Says Its Missile Hit A Russian Jet Earlier today, Ukraine's military had taken responsibility after nine days of increasingly vaporous denials. Seventy-eight people, most of them Russian émigrés to Israel, died when the Siberian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk exploded and plunged 35,000 feet into the sea off the Russian coast. Four minutes earlier, a Ukrainian air defense exercise fired two long-range antiaircraft missiles at a drone off the Black Sea's Crimean coast. Russian investigators concluded on Friday that one of the missiles, an S-300, struck the drone, but that the second, an S-200, flew 150 more miles and unleashed a warhead of shrapnel balls at the airliner. / http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/world/after-9-days-ukraine-says-its-missile-hit-a-russian-jet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/world/after-9-days-ukraine...
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  My mind isn't closed on this one, but the case appears pretty clear-cut to me. While it could have exploded mid air, I seriously doubt it crashing in the war zone was a coincidence.
  - myth_drannon 12y ago
    Surface-to-air missile encountering a large body moving at 900km/h which is fully loaded with fuel will cause the body to completely disintegrate mid air at 10000ft. In this case a ball of fire was clearly seen at the time of the impact and bodies were lying intact on the ground. I'm more and more convinced that it'ss an air-to-air missile, exactly like that Spanish air traffic controller in Kiev was telling that 2 Ukrainian military war planes were tailing that Boeing

eevilspock 12y ago

[damn, i up voted before I got to the end. I'll never do that again.] Taxation also does a lot of positive things. Your logic is filled with false conclusions. What do you propose instead of taxation and states?

snitko 12y ago
There is no my or someone else's logic. There's logic. If you say it's ok that taxation not only sponsored the development of weapons that killed all those people, but they also provided some good things, then it's exactly equal to saying "my husband beats me sometimes, but he's also a provider for my family, so it's okay and we're working on the beating thing". No. Just no. The alternative is free market and free enterprise, of course. I don't propose it though. I know people are very stubborn with the old ways. My only hope is that we are going to see no-state and free market in some places on earth and when people are going to see it's good, they're gonna copy that.